2012 in review.

2012 was kind of crazy, and I don't really want to go relive all of 2012 to make a "Year in Review" post like I've done in the past. Instead I'll do a bullet list, sort of things we've learned/experienced, in no particular order:

• the national spelling bee is the coolest show you will ever see on tv.
• we bought bowling shoes at the beginning of this year and went bowling several times. we were improving when we went often, but then once chris got sick we kind of stopped. we've gone a few times since, but not often enough to improve my mad skills.
• activity days is amazing, and working with the 8-11 year old girls is so much fun! you just have to make sure to remember that they aren't grown ups and don't have the attention span and same skills that adults do, so it's important to simplify crafts and games.
• jury duty is quite the experience. i got summoned, but didn't get put on a jury. chris got summoned a few months later (right after he got better) and he DID get put on a jury. 
• it's scary when you are sick for 1 month without knowing what you even have
• some home teachers make really good curry
• girls absolutely can learn to mow the lawn, and sometimes they do a really good job, and even enjoy it a little bit
• medical insurance is really important, and a HUGE blessing (we'd be in a LOT of debt if it weren't for good insurance)
• it's scary when you get a call from your dr saying "your blood work came back, we want you to go get an MRI of your brain" and then the MRI place calls you about 5 minutes later and says "we got a referral from your doctor. we can squeeze you in in an hour and a half" you really get afraid when someone is willing to see you so quickly.
• it isn't fun to have conversations like "if I die, you should try to go back and finish school on campus at BYU" or "if I am permanently ill, we should probably move to Utah so you can finish school and work. I could be the stay at home dad" --these are so not conversations you want to be having when you haven't even been married for 2 years
• it's important to be pushy with Dr's offices. Get to know the office manager, they are way more helpful than the receptionist/scheduler at a lot of places, especially at the ENT's office. You can get what you want and need a lot faster that way
• it's great to have a scanner at home so you don't have to go anywhere to scan and then send documents to insurance companies, disability leave providers, and doctors offices
• it's really important for a wife to have a girls night to look forward to when she's been dealing with her husband being ill for so long. even if that girls night is doing something dumb like watching the bachelorette. the important thing was the company.
• you can only watch so much tv/movies at a time
• audiobooks are awesome, but you get sick of sitting there
• it's tricky to plan meals and cook when you get a huge list of foods to avoid
• it's really awesome to have a brother-in-law who is a PA, so you can call him and get an opinion on whether or not it's worth it to go to the ER at 10pm
• CVS and Walgreen's have a great selection of canes (if you ever need one)
• going to your pcp every other week is a great way to develop AWESOME relationships with every single person who works there. it also helps when you drop by a few times in between appointments to pick up/drop off paperwork. 
• we picked freaking awesome pcps when we moved here. honestly, i only picked them because we could walk to their office from our first apartment, and there was a male and female doctor in the office. i have referred SEVERAL friends to them since then. i love them both. and every single person there. i know them all! cynthia, ashanti, genielle, katie, valerie and the two doctors. they all ROCK. especially cynthia, because she put certain candies out the days she knew we had an appointment.
• it was smart of me to not take a pregnancy test earlier in the day the day that I found out I am pregnant. that morning i went to playgroup and someone who had recently moved out of the ward said "did i hear that you're pregnant?" and i could honestly say "woah! nope!" i was highly suspicious, and confirmed that suspicion about 20 minutes after i got home, but i didn't have to lie to her.
• morning sickness is a bad name. it should be called "whatever time of day it feels like it" sickness. 
• throwing up gets really old when you do it a couple times a day for a few weeks.
• it wasn't really all that bad when my throwing up happened on a set schedule-11:00am came and I KNEW it was time to run into the bathroom or I was going to have a mess on my hands. once it became more random it was a lot harder to plan my day. i just didn't leave the house for a few weeks in fear of being somewhere and needing a toilet.
• there are a lot of crazy pregnant ladies online that are willing to share every detail of their pregnancy and all their words of "wisdom". they also will cause you to panic if you let them. when in doubt, call the nurse don't google.
• pregnancy dreams are CRAZY. lets just hope mine don't come true, or this baby is going to be a crocodile. and it will be a hermaphrodite. also, i better avoid zoos or else monkeys are going to jump on me and rub their poopy bums all over my face. YIKES. 
• it is not smart to watch extreme makeover: home edition while pregnant. that show had me in tears for hours at a time.
• Our Best Bites and America's Test Kitchen are the best sources (besides that home teachers curry) for recipes. 
• it's ok if the world ends on December 21st because BYU football season ends on December 20th when they play in their bowl game.
• you can buy bosco sticks at sam's club. but be warned, you will want to eat the whole box really quickly. 
• it's hard to find a good office chair for a husband with back problems. he needs something really specific. the one time we thought we found a good one, it was delivered broken. can't really sit on a chair that is missing one of its five wheels. 
• getting an ultrasound of your throat (thyroid) feels really funny. but don't laugh, because it doesn't help the tech get good pictures.
• just dance is a perfectly acceptable form of exercise, especially once the temperature drops and it's only 50 degrees in the mornings. 
• it sucks when your favorite pajamas (my moose pajama pants that my mom made for me in 2005 for our family reunion at yellowstone) start wearing out because you literally live in them about 16 hours a day. but you still wear them because they are the most comfortable pants ever. and they have moosen and bears on them.
• jr bacon cheeseburgers from wendy's are the most delicious thing you can order through a drive-thru. but they don't cost 99 cents like they used to. they're like $1.49 or $1.69 now which is crazy because the patties are smaller than they used to be. the bacon is a little better though... 
• sonic's tater tots are a close second. while you are there you might as well pick up a cranberry limeade. you know you want one. 
• it's hard to shop for your husband for christmas when you share a credit card and follow the same deal sites. i was excited to surprise him with some cheap xbox live subscription cards, but a few minutes after i ordered them he said "woah! did you see this awesome deal on slickdeals for xbox live cards?" and then the next day he saw that a charge showed up on our credit card... what else would i have bought from dell? yeah. so much for a surprise. also, he may be a tiny bit surprised when he sees what box of chocolates he has from See's... because I didn't get the one I would like better (the assortment of peppermint patties) I got him a box of just dark chocolate ones. 
• it takes me approximately 2 minutes to completely empty my pantry when we notice there are ants in it. it then takes about 7 to completely reorganize and put things back after the ants are dead, wiped out, and any visible holes/cracks are filled in. how do i know this? i've had to do it at least 3 times this year, most recently on the night before thanksgiving.
• byu needs to thank their defense for their win against sdsu at the poinsettia bowl. they really need to thank kyle van noy. because he was amazing.
• water is delicious. but sometimes you need to add a little fresh lemon or lime to it, otherwise it gets kind of boring.
• at the beginning of the year i set a goal to read the complete standard works this year. based on everything that happened since may i got waaay behind. instead i am okay with only having read The Old Testament, New Testament, and Pearl of Great Price. 

I could've thought of a lot more, but I think this post is already plenty long. If you read this whole thing, you get extra points. :)

My favorite

This is probably my favorite Mormon Message right now. I just think it has a great message. I've watched it probably about 10 times in the last two weeks. What a sweet reminder of the true Christmas Spirit.

Also, I know you're waiting for a pic of my hair. We're finally coloring it tonight, and then you'll get a pic :)

hair

Today I got the most expensive haircut that I've paid for. I know that the salon I went to sometimes growing up cost more, but it didn't come out of my money, so I don't count my Annette haircuts. How much did I pay? Including tip it was just $23. Since we moved here I've been taking advantage of the coupons on the back of my grocery receipts... a new Great Clips opened up right by the grocery store and at first they were $4.99 haircuts. Then it was $6.99. Last time I used one they were up to $9.99. But I was ready for something different. My hair needed some change. Pretty hardcore change.

A friend in my ward is a stylist. Until she got pregnant last year she was working at a salon, and after she started not feeling so great she decided to just do cuts out of her home. Chris has gotten his hair cut by her a few times and we've LOVED what she has done for his hair. She took the time to actually look through his hair and not mess up the spot that sticks up a little funny in the back.

I decided it was time to get her to cut my hair. I had to wait for her to start working again, since she stopped for about 2 months after giving birth. I was her last haircut before she goes out of town tomorrow for Christmas. And holy crap, I LOVE what she did. When I got ther she asked what I had in mind, I explained the general idea of what I wanted but then asked her for some advice. I knew I wanted about chin length hair, that's all I knew. Was it better to make it all one length? Or to have the back a little shorter? Or just what? And at that length are layers even a smart option? She took the time to look through my hair to see my growth patterns and to figure out where I already have layers and such. She explained to me what she thought was best, and it explained it well enough that I could make my own decision! So... My hair is chin length, with the back a little shorter, and a few soft layers. She even took the time to dry it with a blow dryer and round brush so it's styled and looks like it got straightened. PLUS we actually had all sorts of things we could talk about while she cut it, no small talk like you get at the hairdresser.

It's my favorite haircut I think I've ever gotten. The one time I've walked out of a haircut and immediately liked it.

After she cut it we talked color. Growing up I colored my hair occasionally (always at sleepovers with my friends) and I only stopped because I was broke in college and that $10 needed to go towards groceries instead of my hair. Since  she had her baby she hasn't started doing coloring yet, but said that after they get back in town she'll see how her little guy is doing and see if she is ready to start doing color yet. She said she could order me some professional dye, but I wouldn't get it til she got back, so beginning of January. I decided to just go to Walmart and pick a box myself. I used to be pretty good at picking color, and after reading some of the boxes I figured out what type I wanted. I was even able to find the color that eventually fades over time, since I wasn't sure I was really ready to commit to the maintenance of coloring your hair with permanent dye. Chris is excited about this (I wouldn't have done it if he wasn't into the idea) but we'll see what he thinks when my hair is a different color. I think depending on how this goes I'll at least have her order me color next time... although it would be cool to get my hair pro-colored sometime too.

Chris is going to help me color my hair sometime this week, then I'll post a picture. It will be a lot better to get a picture when someone else can take the picture. I'm excited.

Endo

I saw my Endocrinologist today who looked at all my lab work (all 3 tests) and my thyroid ultrasound and basically said that yes, my number was a little bit low, but so close to normal that she wouldn't medicate me yet at least because my number is so normal. I guess my TSH number is .2 and normal is .3 and she doesn't normally medicate unless you're at or below .01 and she said I was far far away from that. She didn't seem too worried, but is sending me for lab work in 3 weeks and I have an appointment in about a month!

What it sounds like is that my HCG hormone is just interfering with my thyroid hormone a little and messing things up, but that is common in pregnancy. She also said that since I have been dealing with morning sickness my HCG level is probably higher than average which would definitely mess with my TSH more than the average person.

So pretty much I've been anxious and worrying about this for what appears to be no big reason at all! I'm super excited about that!

Thoughts.

I was kind of waiting til after my doctor appointments this week to blog, but it's not like I can't blog before then! Today I see my OB and tomorrow I see my Endocrinologist. I'm really anxious for that appointment because it's a new doctor (for me) and hopefully they'll have answers to my questions and that the meds they likely will put me on will help me to feel better.

My morning sickness came back, although it's not an every day thing anymore. Honestly, that kind of makes it more annoying though. I used to be able to predict exactly how my morning would pan out, but now I never know if it's going to be a "good" day or a "not so good" day. I just learned to not plan anything before noon, but that if it ends up being a good morning I can go do errands before then.

We put our AWESOME 2-foot tall, pre-lit, pre-decorated Christmas tree up a few days ago! This is the tree that Chris's parents sent him while he was on his mission, then sent to us for our first Christmas when our apartment had no room for a tree. We still don't have much room for a bigger tree, unless I moved my piano into the second bedroom, but I don't want to move my piano, because then I won't see it as often and I won't play it. So we just make do with our 2 foot tall tree. It's fabulous! Once the tree went up it lonely, so I went ahead and wrapped a few gifts for Chris. His eyes lit up when he got home from work and saw them, started shaking them and now shakes them often to see if he can guess what is in the packages. I'm smart though and have put everything into boxes no matter what the shape is so that it makes it harder... and then I fill the boxes either with extra fabric scraps (from Activity Days) or the bubble wrap stuff that Amazon uses to fill boxes. He shakes them and doesn't hear a thing! He even has a gift from the baby!

Oh! That reminds me! As we were doing some Black Friday shopping (on Amazon) Chris found a collection of some Berenstein Bear books that was like $5 for 6 books. I ordered it. It's the one thing the baby is getting from us for Christmas from us! I've been trying not to go crazy buying books because there currently is a Book Shower in the talks and I don'tk want lots of duplicates... but Costco has some awesome stuff... an 8 pack of Sandra Boynton books, an 8 pack of The Complete Barnyard Collection (Click Clack Moo, Cows that Type + the follow up books to that), and a 6 pack of Fun with Mouse and Friends (if you give a mouse a cookie, a moose a muffin, a pig a party, etc). It was a good thing that Chris and I went to Costco together, and that HE had the Costco card so that I couldn't buy any of them. Oh, they also had 3 different 4 packs of Dr. Seuss books. Books were the first thing I started thinking about when I saw that pregnancy test. I got on Amazon and started a wish list just of books. That's been fun since we don't know the gender. Also, I want the hugest collection of books ever for my kids! Gosh I love books. Especially kid books.

And that's what's going on here. Oh, that and research, research, research. There are a lot of big things to buy and we want to make sure we're getting good stuff-crib, car seat, stroller, etc. Thanks, Mom & Dad for the subscription to Consumer Reports, that makes the research a lot easier :)